


the freckles in our eyes are mirror images

by bittereternity



Category: Welcome to Night Vale
Genre: Established Relationship, Fluff, Introspection, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-08
Updated: 2013-08-08
Packaged: 2017-12-22 18:29:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,202
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/916567
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bittereternity/pseuds/bittereternity
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The thing is, Night Vale was never supposed to be this; freshly brewed tea in the mornings, the minty smell of Cecil's toothpaste, stolen kisses in the darkness during thunderstorms, fingers lightly brushing against the pocket of his trousers and Cecil's quiet, understated murmurs in his ear. Night Vale was never supposed to become <i>home</i>.</p><p>Or, snapshots of Cecil and Carlos together, in a relationship.</p>
            </blockquote>





	the freckles in our eyes are mirror images

*

Then love knew it was called love.   
And when I lifted my eyes to your name,   
suddenly your heart showed me my way

Pablo Neruda

*

Cecil likes to dunk his biscuits in his tea.

It’s not that Carlos hasn’t seen anyone do it before  -- even though the idea, in itself, doesn’t hold much appeal to him – but he has never seen someone doing it quite like Cecil. It’s the most endearing sight of all to wake up to every morning, stumbling in the kitchen, rubbing his eyes and barely tying the sash of his robe around his waist only to see Cecil seated at the table, biting his lip in concentration, futilely trying to blow away that one lock of hair from his eyebrow as he very carefully dips precisely half of his digestive into his tea.

“It’s science,” Cecil tells him later, biscuits satisfactorily dunked and swallowed and tea consumed. Carlos looks back from tying his tie in front of the bedroom mirror only to see Cecil leaning against the doorway, arms folded and legs crossed. He moves forward once Carlos’ attention is firmly on him, one corner of his mouth folded up in a half-smile.

Carlos raises an eyebrow. “What is?”

“The way I dunk my biscuit,” Cecil replies, grabbing both ends of the tie hanging from his shoulder. “You have to figure out the precise duration for the biscuit to stay in the liquid,” he slings an end of the tie back over his neck, tying a knot, and Carlos tries his best not to shiver – or rather, shiver _too_ noticeably – at the rich, sonorous voice against his chest, vibrating within the core of his being. “Too long and your biscuit will break and sink,” Cecil continues, tying another knot, long, nimble fingers lightly stroking his chest through his shirt, “and too short, you won’t get that soft texture of the liquid seeping inside the pores of the biscuits.” He trails off and ties the second knot just below Carlos’ collar, before taking a step back and straightening his handiwork.

Carlos watches him. “You’ve given this a frightening amount of thought,” he observes.

Cecil shrugs. “It really is quite important,” he says. “I would hate to start a morning by finding, “he pauses momentarily and makes a downward snapping motion with his hands, “pieces of biscuits at the bottom of my cup.”

Carlos can’t quite help staring at his hands as he talks; so engrossed, so passionate, so very much a part of everything he talks about. He goes to pick up his laptop from the bedside table and watches Cecil from a distance, eyes not quite over the horizon, possibly still thinking of the horrific implications of a soggy biscuit. Almost involuntarily, the briefest of sighs of affection and exasperation passes Carlos’ lips,  as he marvels at the enigma of the man in front of him and his sheer ability to immerse himself in the joy of the simplest aspects of the life they are building together.

He presses a kiss to Cecil’s cheek and goes to walk out of the room, stops at the last second. “Wait,” he asks, turning back, “how did you know what I was thinking?”

Cecil takes a few steps forward and stops right in front of him, reaching out to straighten his suit. He leans in to press a kiss to Carlos’ forehead, playfully mussing his hair up just a little.

“Oh, Carlos,” he breathes, like that explains everything.

*

Cecil watches him like he’s –

Cecil’s gaze is always on him, Carlos has noticed, frantically scanning, overcoming the vastness surrounding them merely to find him, pick him out of a crowd. Cecil’s never looks like he wants to burn a hole through his shirt, instead, his eyes, lazily peering out beneath relaxed eyebrows, crinkle at the corner, turn downwards until they scan, scan, scan and _find_ him breathing, existing, simply _there_.  And then, like watching a wave crash beautifully on the shore, the corners of Cecil’s eyes crinkle upwards, the lines of his forehead relax, and something extraordinary lights up within his gaze, makes him come alive.

And it terrifies Carlos that Cecil is willing to spend such an inordinate amount of time simply looking at him, deeming him the epitome of perfection, gazing at him like he’s the _magnum opus_ Cecil has been waiting for his whole life. It terrifies Carlos to no end, makes him toss in bed during sleepless nights, and compels him to hog the blankets in an act of petty rebellion, how much Cecil is perfectly willing to not see.  That Cecil compliments his hair but doesn’t react to his growing bald-patch, strokes his arms yet doesn’t comment on the slightly sagging flesh behind his elbows, trails feather-light kisses all over his torso yet doesn’t tease him about his slightly protruding belly, rolls over on his stomach every morning to kiss him on the mouth without saying a word about his atrocious morning breath.

Sometimes, he alternates between wanting to shake and slap the rose-colored glasses off of him, has to actively repress the sudden urge to grab Cecil by the collar and slam him against the wall, shake the _love_ out of him and scream things like _what are you_ and possibly _what are you made of to find it in yourself to love me like this._

Fingers curling around his glass of water at the dinner table, he looks down and folds a piece of lettuce with his fork, doesn’t say anything, lets Cecil watch, watch, see. Cecil watches him and the sun rises.

*

[things Carlos will not know, but they will be true anyway, coexisting without his knowledge:

Cecil isn’t oblivious, especially not when it comes to Carlos, not after he’s spent hours and days and months mapping out every arch, every angle, every contour of that body. Not after he’s decided to dedicate his life to memorizing every single curve of Carlos’ body; sometimes spread out on his bed as he explores every single crevice, devours every single inch of it with sheer reverence, watching Carlos get tangled in the sheets, buried under the pillows, writhing, moaning, calling out his name, looking every inch like the sole reason of Cecil’s creation, his existence.

Cecil notices it all, diligently memorizes every single imperfection within Carlos that only serves to make him that much more human, that much more magnificent. Cecil notices it all and to him, it makes no difference at all. ]

*

The thing is, Night Vale wasn’t supposed to be this.  Off all things, it was never supposed to be this, the smell of Earl Grey in the mornings and the minty smell of Cecil’s toothpaste, the wet towel he always leaves haphazardly at the corner of their bed, the pout gracing Cecil’s features when he realizes that they’re out of milk again. Night Vale was never supposed to be _home_. And Cecil looks at him in the evening, at the end of their days, gaze meeting his own and fingers lightly brushing against the pocket of his trousers and a quiet, understated murmur in his ear: _you coming home now_ and the hot breath against his ear, and his heartbeat will soar, speed up and up and up and then—

The corner of his mouth curling up almost against his own wishes, he breaks into a smile that he can’t quite help either, that threatens to burst forth on the surface, filled with the desperate need to see Cecil happy, see those eyes light up again, make sure they remain lit always.

“Yeah,” he murmurs, equally quiet, the word out of his mouth before he’s even finished forming it.

The thing about perfection, really, is that the fall is simply that much harder.

*

Cecil can’t cook to save his life.

He discovers this, quite accidentally, after returning home to a kitchen that once used to smell of nothing  but soap and detergent. And in the middle of overturned pans and a couple of dangerously protruding and ridiculously sharp knives, the first thing he sees is Cecil, in all his scratched and slightly soot-covered glory, holding a tray with what might have once been a pie, awaiting his return.

And his heart breaks just a little, then, and everyday onwards, every time he sees Cecil wandering into the kitchen looking a little like a lost child who’s veered off his path, simply to spare him the task of cooking, simply as a small gesture, a token of appreciation _for him._ And his heart breaks just a little bit more when Cecil, in a rush to greet  him, turns around, flinches at the heat emanating from the tray – Carlos makes a mental note to invest in many, many pairs of oven mitts – and subsequently drops it on the floor. At the moment, he wants to do nothing more than rush forward and kiss away the dejected, disappointed expression marring Cecil’s face, stroke his face and reassure him that he would gladly eat burnt pie for the rest of his days if it means coming back to _this,_ to a modicum of happiness.

“You cooked,” he observes instead, and maybe it’s the wonder in his voice or the teasing nature of his tone, but Cecil’s expression relaxes a fraction.

“I think saying that would be a lie,” Cecil replies, half-dejectedly,

This time, Carlos does move forward, ventures through the great maze of vegetable peels and pans and a small area covered in flour. Taking Cecil’s hands in his own, he lifts his arms to gently, smoothly kiss every minute scratch on the inside of Cecil’s wrist. He looks him over, notes the vulnerability in Cecil’s eyes in the way he attempts to avert his gaze, and tiptoes up to kiss the last smudge of flour of his nose.

“You go take a shower,” Carlos tells him, looking around to do a quick inventory of the kitchen. “I’ll try to clean up and whip up something relatively easy.” Cecil stands there, looking just a little out of place, just a little lost and Carlos presses his own fingers against his hand in a show of quiet solidarity. “Go,” he repeats again, “I’ll be fine.”

Watching him go, Carlos takes a deep breath before loosening his tie and removing his suit jacket before putting on gloves and picking up the pans. It isn’t Cecil’s love that catches him off-guard, he thinks as he scrubs the burnt layer of cheese from yet another frying pan, it is the fact that he is capable of loving _back,_ that he has in himself the ability to smile and be content even as he picks up vegetable peels and mops the kitchen floor simply because in the next room, there’s a man waiting for him.

And the epiphany, when it finally arrives, is as unceremonious a realization as everything else in his life: that not only is he open, willing, able to appreciate and open himself up to the love of another person, but that he has, with the presence of Cecil in his life, managed to discover the sheer joy of loving another whole-heartedly, without expecting anything back in return. That in between watching Cecil wake up and put on aftershave in the morning, in between glasses of wine and cubes of cheap cheese, in between bad horror movies and burnt popcorn, he has begun living for something more than himself, someone far more worthy.

Cecil emerges from the bathroom; a towel wrapped around his waist and water dripping on his neck and asks _what did I miss._ Carlos straightens up from the floor and without any preamble, moves forward to hug him, to wrap him closely in his arms, to engulf Cecil within himself.

“Nothing at all,” he murmurs in reply.

*

He won’t ever say it out loud but Cecil’s kisses are like –

Cecil’s kisses are the little drops of rain pattering against the window on cold, lazy Sunday, it’s the shared warmth of tangled feet under a blanket, a double rainbow against the newly emerging sunrise, the emotion from the sound of nostalgic music from when he was a kid, the smell of freshly-wet earth seeping through his pores, the feel of a cracked spine on a favorite book, the texture of freshly-fluffed pillows under his head even at the end of a particular horrific day.

Cecil’s kisses are –

Everything.

And sometimes, Cecil will look at him like he’s asking permission, like he takes a fierce amount of pride in being _allowed_ to kiss him, to be near him. Those times, Carlos will close his eyes and lean back against the bed, the wall, the kitchen counter, wherever it might be, and he will let Cecil map him out, explore uncharted territories, elicit from within him moans and whimpers and reactions that he never even knew he was capable of. And he will close his eyes and just for a second, a minute, an hour, as long as Cecil’s touch lingers, let himself fall further and further under Cecil’s watchful gaze, let himself fall and fall and –

Cecil, ever present and ever waiting, traces him with his fingers, his mouth, his lips, catches him and doesn’t let him go.

*

**Author's Note:**

> I guess this could be technically AU because it has nothing of the mystery/enigma surrounding the podcasts, or even anything about Night Vale in general. This is really just about two men falling in love. Let me know if you need me to add AU to the tags!  
> **- re-edited.


End file.
